WWDC 2026: 6 key Apple Intelligence and Siri AI takeaways

Don’t call Siri AI a chatbot

My initial reaction to the announcement was to think of Siri AI as a chatbot. This is somewhat ironic because Apple has said in the past that it did not want to build a chatbot. Apple, it seems, has read my mind, and in that live session in that auditorium, they were adamant that one shouldn’t view Siri AI as a chatbot. 

Instead, they said Siri AI is deeply integrated into Apple’s platforms and is more accurate to view it as an integral part of the overall platform experience. Unlike chatbots from rivals, where you need to launch their dedicated apps before you can do anything, Siri AI can be invoked from anywhere in the OS. They also explained that a dedicated Siri AI app is the most logical and intuitive way for users to manage and view past queries and see histories of their conversations.

Siri AI isn’t just Gemini reskinned

Another thing that Apple was keen to impress upon attendees at WWDC was that Siri AI isn’t just Google Gemini in another set of clothes. In the special session in the auditorium, Craig and his team explained that only a small part of Apple Intelligence was built in collaboration with Google. Indeed, the fundamentals of Apple Intelligence are all Apple, and that includes Apple Intelligence’s World Knowledge database. However, the models which are used, called Apple Foundation Models (AFM), were developed with Google. 

There are two ways to look at this. The first is that Google’s involvement only makes up a small percentage of Apple Intelligence. Another way to look at it is that, given the importance of the models in enabling the features, Google’s involvement, though arguably small, is crucial. Either way, the bedrock of Apple Intelligence is Apple’s own work, which means it’s grounded in Apple’s privacy and security principles – which is important if you are especially concerned about how your data is handled.

Focusing on optimisations

While past WWDCs focused heavily on new features, this year was all about making improvements and refinements to Apple’s various platforms. If I had to guess, I’d say this focus on optimisations has something to do with the fact that Apple wanted to focus on getting Siri AI and Apple Intelligence right.

Even so, there’s some exciting and noteworthy news here. One of the biggest ones for me was how Apple is making just about every aspect of its platforms run faster, smoother, and better. Here are the highlights that were mentioned in the keynote:

• iPhone and iPad apps will launch up to 30% faster
• New photos appear up to 70% faster in the Photos app
• Up to 80% faster AirDrop transfers
• Up to 5x faster browsing and transferring files in iPadOS

Apart from the performance tweaks, another highlight that was intriguing to me was smarter network transitions. iPhone will now more intelligently switch between Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity. This can be especially handy if you have Wi-Fi deadspots at home, because in iOS 28, your iPhone should now know that Wi-Fi is weak and switch to cellular automatically. As someone who has a Wi-Fi deadspot in my bedroom, this sounds like a feature made for me.

New features in apps enabled by Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence will enable a bunch of new features in existing apps. Here are some of the ones that stood out the most:

• Tab management in Safari – Apple Intelligence can analyse your tabs and help tame them by creating groups based on topics.
• Automatically fixing passwords – Using Apple Intelligence and Safari, the Passwords will be able to change your weak and/or compromised passwords automatically for you. 
• Easy creation of Shortcuts – Shortcuts is a powerful tool, but it can be daunting to use for beginners. Apple Intelligence will let users create new Shortcuts using natural language. Think vibe-coded Shortcuts.
• Spatial Reframing – A new feature in the Photos app that lets you reframe a photo after you’ve taken it. It lets you change the photo’s perspective, so you can make it seem like a photo was taken from a lower angle or from a higher point, or even move it to the left or right. It uses generative models to fill in areas of the photos that weren’t captured originally.

Greater parental controls

Parents will be happy to know that Apple is overhauling the way parental controls work across Apple devices. There will be a suite of new parental control features aimed at giving greater control and flexibility over what kids can and cannot do on their Apple devices. This suite of parental control features will be guided by four principles:

• What kids can see
• Who can kids talk to
• When kids have access
• How parents can guide kids

For more on this, check out our earlier coverage of Apple’s new parental control features here.